”Check.”
August looked at the board. Lit up in a smile.
”That you shouldn´t have done. Now I will take your lady”.
Ludwig looked at August's horse which took his lady. H5. Thought for a moment. Then he played surprised.
”Damn.”
He drank some water and then said.
”But if I do this then.”
Ludwig took his runner to G6. Said with a little more courage and confidence.
”Check.”
August looked worried on the board. On his king and lady. On the horse behind the runner. At Ludwig´s runner.
He didn´t know why but Ludwig waited a few seconds, but then he said.
”Mate.”
August's eyes went back and forth.
”But ... you sly devil.”
Ludwig noticed that August was annoyed. After a few minutes he got up and without saying anything, he went to a cupboard.
He turned on some controls. It crackled through the speakers. Gentle piano. It was Beethoven. The melancholy Moonlight Sonata.
August sat down on the couch and asked Ludwig to sit beside him. He congratulated the victory and pointed to Victoria's portrait and said.
”I hope you show humility for an old man especially when he loses in his own salon in the presence of his own wife.”
August crossed his legs and continued.
”That painting is rather old, I ordered it after just a few years. She was very beautiful as you can see, and yes, I am of course biased but she did not have many flaws. Despite her appearance and background, she was still always humble and warm, something I always wanted to be myself but I rarely attained that but she helped me, she really did.”
Ludwig noticed that August held back, but that he still wanted to talk. Ludwig said nothing just listened. August continued to talk as he looked lovingly at Victoria's portrait.
”Many years ago, I was recruiting a research director at one of my industrial companies, who would be stationed at our headquarters in Vienna. We had 48 candidates of which one was a woman. Since I hire all key management positions myself in my company and there are many recruitments each year they easily become monotonous, so for fun I thought I would test them. At each interview, I asked the same question. ”If I give you a pen and a paper, can you solve a cubic equation?”
We had all of the applicants for an interview and all the men answered yes to my question. The only one who answered different was the woman, who said she was hesitant but she would try. To the surprise of many, I put out a paper and a pen, and a cubic equation that reminded of Ferro's formula. I told them they had five minutes and then left the room.
”How'd it go?”
”The only one who managed to solve the equation was the woman. And it was the first time I met Victoria.”
August fell silent for a moment.
”But anyway. I did of course give her the job, perhaps not only because she solved the equation but for various reasons, she didn´t accept. At the time I thought she was crazy, she suddenly got the idea that she would read the history of art of all subjects. But but. We met a few years later on a Stube in the Alps. We bumped into each and a few days later on the slopes and then on the Stube again where she gave me a message on a small linen napkin.”
Ludwig lost focus on August´s story. He felt something in his stomach. His heart was beating hard and wanted out of the chest. In the fireplace, he saw the monkey. He looked away. At Friedrich praying man the monkey grin hid in the desolate winter landscape. The wind outside the castle sounded like distant sirens. He heard someone ask what they looked like.
August turned to Ludwig.
”It came so sudden. We had so many years ... ”
He took a deep breath. Looked up at the portrait of Victoria above the fireplace. Stumbled through the words.
”I don´t understand why she could not have told me. That she did not even said a word.”
Ludwig saw August grab ahold of his pants. Squeezed the fabric. An effort to maintain composure. From an inside pocket of his jacket he pulled the linen napkin, he talked about. The message had disappeared with time, it was, after all, over 40 years ago. But the love was still as strong as ever.
August stood at the window and looked out into the darkness.
”Imagine that the one thing that give you meaning in life, everything that is worth something, joy, the desire to get up or lie there and look at her, the will to live, is also the one that robs the same thing. It´s only love that can crush your heart. I have thought several times of taking my life. And like Goethe and his young Werther I get pissed off at anyone who thinks that it is cowardly. It is like standing at the side of someone's bedside and talk sensible words to the sick in the hope that he will get well. Give it time. Shut up, I have an incurable disease - try to reason with my cancerous tumor!”
The Moonlight Sonata started over. August went to the stereo to change the music.
18
The Castle Ruotkerspurch, Riegersburg
June 13
August switched to Rachmaninov. When August told Ludwig about Victoria, he was eager to resume the search for the explanation to her mysterious death.
”I have thought of one thing, Ludwig. Victoria's diary entries in the books that you have found.”
August opened the leather-bound notebook.
”It was primarily these two dates I thought of.”
He pointed to a few lines in the book:
November 25
Where in Reproba and Über is the CE-cipher?
December 14
5 signs in the Four-leaf clover x 3 signs (Capita et bos) x (Lateranense, Matteiano, Flaminio) = Illustro. As he wrote: Priscus Latina.
”Here Victoria mentions three things I find interesting, namely Reproba and Über and the Four-leaf Clover. Have you heard of these before? ”
Ludwig knew at least some of the names but could not place them. It was unlike Ludwig but I guess he was under a lot of stress that pushed away the memory, even twisted it a little. I say this because almost four years ago, Ludwig showed me a picture of Reproba-pamphlet and its ciphers that were on the front.
”I don´t think so”, Ludwig said after a while, but he was unsure.
”I'm sure Victoria with Reproba refers to the pamphlet Reproba informatio ab Deus - occultus venalicium in praedestino vicis versus the Über-pamphlet Über die drei Juristen, die das Ende der Welt vorausgesagt haben und wie die Welt geendet hat. Both written around the turn of the year 1600. The first in Rome and the other one in Prague. What is meant by the Four-leaf Clover is a bit difficult to describe, but it is a guide, one might say.”
August lowered Rachmaninov.
”These three are intimately connected with an ancient holy temple that has long been sought after and disappeared several hundred years.”
Ludwig began to understand what it was about.
When Ludwig came to the castle, he had never believed that August would say what he said now.
August stood under the painting by Turner. The lamp in the frame lit up Caligula's palace ruins in the darkness behind August. He poured himself a glass of brandy and offered Ludwig once again but he declined once more. August asked.
”Have you heard of The Umbrarum Regni ab Quinque Porta Theatrum – The Theatre of the Five Gates in the Kingdom of Shadows?”
Ludwig finally remembered the Reproba-pamphlet. He said.
”Yes, I do, but it´s about the same thing with the Theatre as it is with El Dorado. Everyone knows what it is but no one knows what it is. A lost city built of gold. A lost sacred temple. There is not much more than that that is known. What I remember anyway, it´s supposed to be a sort of ancient ritual site based on some ancient philosophy. I have a faint recollection that it was believed that the Renaissance philosophers and magicians Giordano Bruno, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino had something to do with it all, what exactly I don´t remember.”
August didn´t
move an inch.
”Well, it is based on much older sources than Bruno, Ficino and Pico. I'll refresh your memory, Ludwig. Unlike El Dorado's the Theatre is well documented but the location is unknown.”
August took a sip of his brandy. He asked Ludwig to sit at the chessboard. He sat down opposite.
”What they amused themselves with in Greece and Rome after the coming of Christ had its origin in the divine knowledge attributed to the man known as Thoth in Egypt, as you probably heard about. He is also called Hermes or Hermes Trismegistus in ancient Greece, the thrice greatest Hermes, because he was considered the greatest king, philosopher and priest.”
August opened a book on Egyptian hieroglyphics. Showed a picture of an ibis bird from the Karnak temple in Luxor.
”He is depicted that way often. Thoth lived for thousands of years in ancient Egypt. He was the one who instituted the Egyptian laws. He was a writer, to say the least. Creator of scripture and philosophy. He had such power that he pretty soon was considered a god. He even helped this myth along by using a mask that consisted of an ibis head.”
August took another sip. The brandy trickled through his teeth. He went to a table where there was a thick book with a black cover. Took it to Ludwig. Struck up a page with a strange picture.
He explained that the page was an excerpt from the General Inquisitor Roberto Bellarmine´s notebook Theatrum Diabolus, which since many years was in his possession.
Bellarmine, August explained, had been looking like crazy for the Theatre in the late 1500s as a personal vendetta and because that he along with many others seeked the Theatre for purely selfish reasons, a fact the Great Doctor never acknowledged.
August pushed the book closer to Ludwig. Pointed the image. It depicted Moses standing on Mount Sinai, where he just given the stone tablet of the law to the people. In the shadows, he was given a book in secret by an ibis-masked man who said August was Thoth.
”This picture depicts a widespread perception within this esoteric. It is based on Moses received two tablets of stone, one of the law that he taught to the people, and one where the correct interpretation of the law stood. The latter version has long been gone and hidden. The people deserved and did not understand more than a simple truth. You've probably heard of something that is hermetically sealed, an airtight construction that a tin or so. It originated in Hermes and his teachings that were inaccessible to the masses.”
The phone rang. August went and answered. He spoke German, quick and short. After just a few minutes la August on.
”Excuse me, Ludwig. An old friend of mine walked away a week ago. I am his closest. I am trying to arrange the funeral. I have to go to Vienna one day to the mortuary to arrange a death certificate. I'm sorry, where was I? ”
”Thoth´s doctrine.”
”Oh, yes. Thoth´s doctrine. The original truth which is said that he uncovered and wrote down in a book. The book is said to be the only holy scripture, which everything else holy supposedly is based on. It contains something absolutely amazing and awe-inspiring.”
August stopped and looked at Ludwig with big eyes. Ludwig saw his expression went from teaching to severe. August spoke with a lower voice, as if to emphasize the importance of his words.
”In Thoth´s book, the key is buried. Thoth describes his great discovery: a magic that has such power that it hardly can be described. This magic is so inaccessible and secret that only one man existed who managed to come into possession of it except Thoth. There was a man who lived in the 1500s. He was called The Nolan. It was the notorious magician from Nola, Giordano Bruno.”
Ludwig didn´t budge. Like Michele, he had heard the story before. August continued unabated.
”Where Thoth´s book has been hidden has varied through time. Ac-cording to the myth, Thoth foresaw the great flood, which is described in the Bible and built the pyramids to preserve it. This has been known to the Arabs and it has also made its mark in what they call him. Haram, which means pyramid, reflects Hirmis which is Arabic for Hermes, which then goes back to the Greek name of Thoth.
Later the book was hidden in the library of Alexandria, where it remained for many centuries until the library tragically burned down and the book was brought out of the old country to Greece and Athens.
But the Theatre was never built in ancient Athens because of all the wars with Sparta and the Roman Empire. Since this never occurred the knowledge fell into oblivion for quite some time. A few scholars knew of the divine knowledge during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
It was not until the Renaissance that something happened. Corpus Hermeticum, the famous corpus of the hermetic religion, rediscovered in the ancient Roman province of Macedonia in the 1400s and was taken by a monk to Florence where the translator and humanist Marsilio Ficino was ordered by his master, Cosimo de'Medici to wait with translations of Plato to translate this work from Greek into Latin. Can you imagine why, Ludwig?”
Ludwig shook his head though he had his suspicions.
”Because what both Medici and Ficino were after, the root of the Renaissance, the great rebirth, was the old heritage. Prisca Sapientia. The original truth. And part of it was described in the Corpus Hermeticum. Medici and Ficino understood, therefore, that in their hands was the key to the secret of the Creation. The truth that Judaism, Christianity, Islam and philosophers had distorted over the years.”
Ludwig sat quiet and repeated to himself that the castle was the perfect hiding place. He did not want to upset his employer by arguing against him.
”Me and Victoria was like many others interested in finding the Theatre but like everyone else we failed because like everyone else we couldn´t find the Four-leaf Clover which is said to be a small box with directions to the Theatre, the path is also said to be in Thoth´s Brotherhood´s scripture Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis.
We could not find the cipher in the Reproba and Über-pamphlets. But that was 20-30 years ago. I cannot for the life of me understand why she'd started to look for it now, and even less understand why she didn´t tell me. Anyway, so, if I remember it correctly, according to our previous research Thoth´s book is hidden in the Theatre, which has become its final resting place. The 1400's the book was transported out of Greece to Italy where the Theatre would be built, but in fact it was first built there later, when I do not remember. I am fairly confident that it was built either in Florence or Rome, the only question is where.
But the even bigger question of course is why Victoria started to make inquiries of this now. I would love to talk to Loretta Colonna about it all, she is the curator at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Victoria mentions her in her last diary entry on January 9.”
*
Vienna
June 13
Matteo drove in circles with Marco in the car. They ran on Babenbergerstrasse past the Museum Quartier and Naturhistorisches Museum and into the parkway on the Ringstrasse.
In his hand Matteo held a notebook in which he noted the traffic, wrote down alleys and side streets which was not unidirectional. He put the notebook aside and opened an atlas.
He looked out the window and down the atlas, he followed with his finger the way out of Vienna from Kunsthistorisches Museum. He put a ruler over the book and measured the distance and recorded the time.
*
August disappeared in a thought. Murmured.
”Could it have anything to do with the Theatre as a portal to the afterlife? But why would she? ”
”What?”
”Forgive me, Ludwig. I was just thinking of what reasons she might have had but I cannot think of any.”
Ludwig thought about what August just said. I think it was here that the first thought was awakened by Ludwig, in any case, it was the first seed and he didn´t see it himself but it was there and would grow strong faster than he could have imagined.
August sat quiet and drank his brandy. His words about the afterlife echoed in Ludwig's head.
He saw the mushroom cloud from Dr. St
range Love's final scene and the song at the end of the movie cranked up and ran.
He heard Vera Lynn sing We'll meet again, don´t know where, don´t know when.
Pictures of Ella and the monkey-ass blasted through.
They stood on the sidewalk outside the store.
His buddies laughed at Ludwig.
The sky was dark.
The street was dead quiet except for the cries.
He recognized the screams. Ludwig did not want to see more. He concentrated on what August said to pierce the images. He said.
”I have thought of another diary entry Victoria wrote. Namely, the most recently dated”, he still heard Vera Lynn in a low tone, she sang But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.
Ludwig pointed to the last line of the page in the notebook.
January 9
Despite Loretta´s warnings - could it really be them? I must try, it is soon the summer solstice.
”What does she mean by the summer solstice?”
August sat up.
”I have a faint recollection of that. It's so long ago I tried to find the Theatre. I think there is something about it in the Theatrum Diabolus.”
August browsed Bellarmine´s book a few minutes.
”Here we have it.”
August translated freely from Bellarmine´s sometimes intricate ecclesiastical Latin.
”Bellarmine writes here that since Thoth´s book was written, there has always existed for some Theatre, called a Millennium Theatre. According to the myth, it exists for a thousand years at a time and is never built on the same spot again. No one knows how they are built and no, not that I know of, either, which is not part of the Brotherhood has ever found any Theatre. The first one was built probably in Egypt. Exactly 1000 years after the Theatre has been built, it will be destroyed on the brightest days that year. Hence the summer solstice, I guess.”
August pointed to the notebook and said.
”Here, Bellarmine wrote down more precisely when the current Theatre is believed to have been built. Wait, I'll get a pen and paper.”